The Plague Of Fantasies

Modern audiovisual media have spawned a 'plague of fantasies', electronically inspired phantasms that cloud the ability to reason and prevent a true understanding of a world increasingly dominated by abstractions-whether those of digital technology or the speculative market. Into this arena, enters Zizek: equipped with an agile wit and the skills of a prodigious scholar, he confidently ranges among a dazzling array of cultural references-explicating Robert Schumann as deftly as he does John Carpenter-to demonstrate how the modern condition blinds us to the ideological basis of our lives.

The essential texts for understanding Zizek’s thought.

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Billions of dollars were hastily poured into the global banking system in a frantic attempt at financial stabilisation. So why has it not been possible to bring the same forces to bear in addressing world poverty and environmental crisis? In this take-no-prisoners analysis, Slavoj Zizek frames the moral failures of the modern world in terms of the epoch-making events of the first decade of this century. What he finds is the old one-two punch of history: the jab of tragedy, the right hook of farce. In the attacks of 9/11 and the global credit crunch, liberalism dies twice: as a political doctrine and as an economic theory. The election of Donald Trump only confirms the bankruptcy of a liberal order on its last legs. First as Tragedy, Then as Farce is a call for the left to reinvent itself in the light of our desperate historical situation. The time for liberal, moralistic blackmail is over.

Slavoj Žižek is undoubtedly one of the world's leading cultural critics. His witty, psychoanalytically-inspired analyses of contemporary society have almost single-handedly revived the notion of ideology. His brilliant commentaries on the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and the 19th century German Idealists have brought alive their often difficult ideas for a new generation of readers. But does Žižek have anything to say in his own right? Is there a system of thought that we can properly call " Žižekian"? This book argues that there is, through a reading of two terms in his work—the master-signifier and the act. Featuring an interview with Žižek himself, Slavoj Žižek: Live Theory presents a snapshot of the Žižek system ideal for undergraduates in social and cultural theory and philosophy.

Brivic argues that James Joyce's fiction anticipated Jacques Lacan's idea that the perceivable world is made of language and that Joyce, Lacan, and Žižek all carry forward a psychological and linguistic groundwork for social reform.

An all-star cast of radical intellectuals discuss the continued importance of communist principles In 2009 Slavoj Žižek brought together an acclaimed group of intellectuals to discuss the continued relevance of communism. Unexpectedly the conference attracted an audience of over 1,000 people. The discussion has continued across the world and this book gathers responses from the conference in Seoul. It includes the interventions of regular contributors Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek, as well as work from across Asia, notably from Chinese scholar Wang Hui, offering regional perspectives on communism in an era of global economic crisis and political upheaval.

What is the basis of belief in an era when globalization, multiculturalism and big business are the new religion? Slavoj Zizek, renowned philosopher and irrepressible cultural critic takes on all comers in this compelling and breathless new book. From 'cyberspace reason' to the paradox that is 'Western Buddhism', On Belief gets behind the contours of the way we normally think about belief, in particular Judaism and Christianity. Holding up the so-called authenticity of religious belief to critical light, Zizek draws on psychoanalysis, film and philosophy to reveal in startling fashion that nothing could be worse for believers than their beliefs turning out to be true.